


mama sarah

by mariiahills



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Avengers Family, Gen, Jewish Character, Jewish Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 06:06:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17913227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariiahills/pseuds/mariiahills
Summary: in which: sarah rogers gets herself six, or seven, kids





	mama sarah

in which sarah rogers obtains six, seven children. au. set in 1920-1930s.

“Sarah Rogers was a fierce woman,” people would say at her funeral. Raising six kids, working in a hospital, supporting herself as a widowed woman. 

The six kids, they were Sarah Rogers’ greatest legacy, she would say to everyone. Steve, her own blood and flesh, Natasha, the orphan girl, Clint, the wandering carnie, Bruce, her smart kid, Thor, the big brother, and Tony, who ran away from his parents. Along with her six kids, there was the Barnes kids that came over often. 

When Sarah Rogers left for America in 1912, she was freshly eighteen. Sarah was excited, she was leaving home. Becoming independent. Trying new things, by herself, maybe pursuing a higher education in the States and making something for herself. Everything was going to be grand, just like the boat she was on.

The Titanic, the ship that would never sink. She knew that she was a steerage passenger, that she shared her cabin with five other people. A married couple from Denmark, a sixteen year old servant girl, an old Chinese man, and an aspiring actor from Sweden. They were quite the group. 

Everything was fine, everything was grand, until it wasn’t. 

One day, April fourteenth, the ship hit an iceberg. Women and children first, but with her lower class living, would she be safe? Would her new friends be safe? 

“Bonnie,” whispered Sarah, “Let me give you my life belt,”

Bonnie, the runaway, could arguably be first child Sarah ever had. They were only two years in age apart, but immediately Sarah felt a parental nudge to the girl. If she couldn’t get off of the boat and live, Bonnie had to. 

“But- you need one!”, replied Bonnie, close to tears. Sarah had paid no attention to Bonnie’s tears, her repeated cries of “take back your life belt!”, and “i don’t need two of them”, and pulled her up towards the deck through the increasing water. Perhaps she should’ve, perhaps Sarah should’ve looked back at Bonnie’s scared face and consoled her. Instead, Sarah handed her off to a ship steward who promptly dropped her into a lifeboat.

The boat was tipping, cracking in the middle. Shouts from all around, the violin music coming to a halt, people, kids, women, men, kissing each other goodbye, and she, she closed her eyes and waited.

The eyes opened again. She was laying down, on a fluffy mat, something so expensive she never would've gotten to touch, ever. Her hair was in a neat plait, her shift was changed. Where was she? The last thing she could remember was the feeling of falling, and the coldness of the water that surrounded her.

Was she in heaven?

Later, she found out, the RMS Titanic split into two parts and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. She learned a nice first class grandmother had given her the blanket and the dress, and a large sum of money. She learned that she was on the RMS Carpathia, and was due to arrive in New York City in approximately half a day. 

That’s just the beginning.

People looked at her, thought she’d be subdued by the Titanic tragedy. Her family wrote her, acting as if her fiery attitude was gone, as if she was going to settle down and be domestic. Eventually, she stopped communicating.

She went to rallies, demanding workers unions and fair pay. She wanted her voice to be heard, wanted to make a change. In 1916, when she was twenty-two, she met a man at a suffrage parade, a man named Joseph. Together, they rallied for fair hours, women’s votes, desegregation, queer rights. Sarah and Joseph Rogers were a force to be reckoned with together.

Eventually, Joseph proposes, and Sarah accepts. They get a little apartment in Bed-Stuy, and have a little Jewish ceremony with Joseph’s family at his Synagogue. Their wedding night is nothing but love and whispers of “I love yous,”. They decide to have a honeymoon near the end of the year at Long Island. 

A month later, everything changes. 

Joseph gets shipped off to the war, and Sarah finds out she’s a month pregnant. They exchange letters at a steady rate for a while, and then, she doesn’t get any replies, any reason for why it’s just her. Sarah fears the worst. 

On Independence day of 1918, Sarah Rogers births a baby boy. She names him Steven, Steve for short, after her grandfather. Steve was, and is, a sickly child. Small for his age, despite being born at a healthy time. Diagnosed with scoliosis, asthma, pernicious anaemia, arrhythmia, and a list of other ailments. Sarah Rogers vowed to keep him alive, if it was the last thing she ever did. 

When Steve was two, the United States passed an amendment allowing women to vote. Sarah took him to the streets to celebrate. She would teach him how to be a good man, how to be kind and gentle and fierce. Walking home that day, with Steve in her arms, Sarah notices a small girl laying in an alleyway.   
That girl, Natasha, is the second child she takes in.

Sarah puts Steve down- he whines, for a bit, until he sees what she is looking at. A young girl, probably four or five, laying facedown in a dark alleyway. 

Sarah walks over with Steve in tow, and gets down on her knees. It’ll be a pain to wash out the stains, she knows, but it would all be worth it if she could save another child. 

“Hey,”, she says, rolling over the girl faceup, “how are you?”. The girl slowly opens her eyes, and immediately scrambles away from her. “Wait, no, do you need help?”

The girl looks scared, unsure of herself. Then, she points to her chest and says, “Natasha,”

“Your name is Natasha, isn’t it?” asks Sarah, softer. “Honey, where are your parents?”

The girl pauses for a bit. “Russia,” she replies. Her accent is thick and it is even harder to decipher her words through tears. Eventually, the girl, Natasha, comes home with her and Steve. 

Natasha is a good older sister, quiet perhaps, but good. She teaches Steve some words in Russian, and laughs as he gets the pronunciation wrong. She’s smart, Sarah discovers, and has an affinity towards languages. By now, Natasha’s five, and is already learning Sarah’s native Gaelic. 

Sarah doesn’t know much about Natasha from before she found her- she knows that Natasha’s family was in Russia, that she doesn’t know her birthday or how she got to New York City. So, they both take an old calendar, and find a day to be deemed as her birthday. 

A year later, Natasha and Steve are walking hand in hand to her new elementary school, with Sarah a few steps behind them. She watches as Natasha kisses Steve on both cheeks and promises to play with him later. She tells him, no, I can’t take you to class, you’re still a baby!

Natasha’s fast friends with the youngest Barnes kid, Bucky, she notices as they come pick her up. They’re talking excitedly on the front steps, and she watches as Steve joins in on the conversation. She’s glad her kids are making friends, glad that they’re letting little Steve join in on the conversation. 

On Christmas day of 1922, Sarah’s little family is at their apartment. They’re Jewish, so they spend the day walking around their neighborhood together. That is when Sarah gets her third kid, Clint. 

Steve, Natasha, and Bucky are skipping hand in hand, swinging Steve in the middle of them. Despite not celebrating the holiday, it’s been a good year for Sarah at the hospital, and she has money left over, so she gets Natasha a new tartan jacket, Steve new shoes, and gets a stuffed bear for Bucky. 

There’s a sign for the circus that comes every winter, and she knows that the kids are going to ask to go. Circuses are expensive, even during a good year, but she could go a day without food to make sure her kids are happy. 

“Ma, look! The circus!”, Natasha’s voice is loud and bright. The other children nod their heads in agreement. Sarah plasters on a smile and walks them into the tents. She won’t let them worry about financial issues. 

The circus ends in a spectacle of colors. Bright explosions of light across the room. Her kids watch in childlike wonder. The music stops, the actors pose, and thundering applause is throughout. Her kids are preoccupied, and the mother part of her notices a small boy with a trash bag. He’s probably a carnie, she thinks, but also goes to check it out. 

She grabs Steve by the hand, who latches onto Bucky, who quickly grabs Natasha’s hand. Sarah leads then down to the edge of the tent, where the boy is hiding. 

“I’m Sarah,”, she says. She can feel the stares of her children on the back of her head. They know she’s got a bleeding heart. “Do you want to come with us?” 

The boy looks confused, and he bites down on his lip. 

“You don’t have to,”

He looks around, nervous, and starts gesturing towards his ears with a X motion. Oh. He’s deaf, she thinks. It explains a lot to Sarah, why he’s nervous, why he’s working in a circus instead of going to school. 

“Lady- what are you doing?” shouts a burly man. Sarah’s gut reaction is to pull her kids- and the boy behind her.

“Making sure the kid is alright. You?”

“This one? He’s deaf, the little shit- he can’t do anything. The best life for him is cleaning up where people will let him, or fucking around for money”. The man pulls on the boy’s ear, and starts to drag him away. Sarah’s offended, to say the least. Child laborers, and vulgar language. Sarah’s not sure if she should go back to the circus again. In anger, she slaps the man’s arm and pulls the boy away from him.

“I’m sorry, but we’ll be leaving now,” she says, pushing four kids in front of her. She walks at a brisk pace- she’s cause quite a scene. Sarah is damning the awful man under her breath. It’s when she’s back home, she sends Bucky, Steve, and Natasha to go play in a different room as she talks to the boy. 

What she finds out, is that his name is Clint, which he knows how to spell, that he’s nine years old, and his parents are dead. He does this by pointing at the sky, and she can only assume his parents are in heaven. 

When she puts the kids to sleep, including Clint, and sends Bucky back home to his parents, Sarah makes the short walk from her place to the library, and checks out a book on sign language. 

“New patient?” asks the librarian. Sarah remembers helping the librarian’s wife give birth to a baby girl. 

“New kid,” replies Sarah. The librarian grimaces. She knows people around here like to talk, especially about her, her kids. They call her little apartment complex Rogers’ Home for Unwanted Children. No one’s particularly subtle about it. 

“A deaf kid? Wonder how long that’s going to last,” the librarian finally says. Sarah sighs. She has faith in Clint, she really does. Sarah makes another vow to let Clint grow to his best potential. 

Six months pass, and her whole little family knows how to sign. She has Natasha tutor Clint, considering he’s never been to school. Sarah will not let her children not be educated. During these six months, is the time that Steve contracted rheumatic fever, despite his young age of four. The whole family is holding their breaths, she can tell. The fever makes him look even more sickly, and in the end, he’s alive, but his previous conditions worsened. 

It’s June, and school vacation just started. Natasha’s turned seven, Steve is five, and Clint is ten. She knows her kids are bored, and she gives Clint the okay to go outside while she’s at work, as long as they are all together and within arm’s length reach of each other. Usually, she comes home from work to find her kids sleeping soundly next to each other with the covers pushed off the bed. She’ll smile, kiss each one on the forehead, and prepare supper. 

One day, she gets home, and something is off. Hushed whispers come from the bathroom. Sarah would go investigate, but she believes her kids will tell her if something is wrong. She calls for supper, and everything was tense. 

“Tell me about your days,” she says and signs, “anything interesting happened?” Natasha nudges Clint, who nudges Steve. 

“We found something,” Steve admits. That’s new, thinks Sarah. 

“We found a baby. On our welcome mat. So we brought him in,” signs Clint. The others nod. A baby? Who, in their right minds, would give up a baby? So, she marched right down to the bathroom and picked him up. 

“Was there any information about him? Name?” she asks. Steve, her good son, is already heating up milk in a saucepan. “No? No name? Well, I think I’ll call you Bruce. Everyone- meet your new brother Bruce,”. 

Soon, it’s the beginning of school. Steve’s going this year, and her heart worries for him. Steve’s a good kid, teachers will like him, but he’s small and scrawny for his age, his medical issues will be, well, an issue. She already pulled Natasha and Bucky aside to tell them to look out for Steve. 

Clint will be staying home, she discussed this with the city council. She’ll teach him at home, once she gets back from work. During the day, he’ll cook and care for little Bruce. At the end of the year, Sarah will drag him down to the school and have him take a test. 

The first day, she’s hopeful, as she steps into the little apartment. But, she’s greeted by her Stevie, covered in bruises. Her face scans her other children, checking, checking for injuries. Natasha’s holding a cold bag to her elbow, and Bucky has a cut on his face.

It’s Clint that explains first. “Some older kids at school tried to hurt Steve. Because he’s small and an easy target. Then Natasha punched someone. Bucky had to pull them both away from the guy,”, he signs. Sarah feels a mixture of feelings. Pride, that her kids have such a strong bond. Fear, for her Steve’s well-being. This is a parenting moment, she thinks. It is a vital moment to the development of children. 

“Well,” she starts. Her kids are gazing down at their feet. “I am proud of you for standing up for your brother- but, I do want you to know that I would rather you use your voice, rather than your fists. Punching someone, even for a good cause, also makes you a bully,”. Sarah’s proud of herself, proud of that little monologue. She calls for supper, and they eat quietly. She’s still got a few things on her mind. 

That night, as her kids are doing homework, and little Bruce is sleeping, she pulls Steve into another room. She tells him to love himself. That it doesn’t matter what people at school says. That you are loved, and you are special. 

The school year of 1924 was also the year she found everyone’s talents. Natasha wanted to be a ballerina, so, Sarah skipped three days of eating to buy her ballet slippers, and called in an old favor to send her to classes. Steve was a remarkable artist, so she got him fancy pencils she saw in the art shop down the street from the hospital. Clint was a good writer, once he learned the words, so she got him a typewriter. 

Soon it was summer again. Clint had passed his test, and they found Bruce to be remarkably smart for a toddler. The summer of 1925 was pretty normal, for the Rogers household. Her kids would go out, play, and then come back in. That summer, Sarah had also moved up the ladder at the hospital- now she was paid almost double. 

So, she decided to put half of the money she made for her children’s future. Towards Natasha’s dancing career, towards a fancy school for Bruce, a good liberal arts school for Clint, and art school for Steve. 

Near the end of the summer, Sarah Rogers picked up another kid. Thor Odinson, a seventeen year old boy. Thor lived in the apartment below them, and worked at the harbor. When she went down to greet the new neighbors and realized it was a young immigrant, Sarah’s heart swelled. 

They don’t see him very often, but he comes every weekend to watch the kids, and to stay for supper. 

Then the school year starts again. Steve and Bucky spend all their time together, Natasha hangs out with Clint and the other boys at school. Bruce learns how to read before he learns how to walk, and Thor is a very good babysitter. 

It’s a comfortable routine they go through, Sarah’s little mix-matched family.

They live through the awkwardness of puberty talks, Natasha gets her first period, and the talks about sex, too. Sarah laughs as her kids faces get all red and hot. Clint gets his first girlfriends, a pretty lady named Laura. 

Sarah gets another raise- and another promotion, and now Sarah can afford to take the kids places on the weekends. They all take a week-long vacation at Coney Island. Sarah can get used to her kids being happy.

All until 1929. All until the stock market crashes. Steve is eleven when this happens, Natasha and Bucky are thirteen, Natasha’s at ballet school, Clint is seventeen and studying at Columbia, Bruce is seven, just starting elementary school. Thor is twenty-one, and works full time at the docks to support him and his cousin Brunnhilde. 

The family are sitting at the dining table, huddled around small radio as they hear the news. Sarah knows the kids won’t understand, Thor and Clint will, no one else. She knows her paycheck is going to get cut, maybe she’ll get fired. Just as things are looking up for the Rogers family, things are looking back down just as quickly.   
Things are fine for the first year, not many budget cuts were made. Maybe Sarah skipped eating, or maybe she decided to not buy a new dress. Her kids were happy, and so was she. 

In terms of her family, Clint proposed to Laura. They were young, she’ll admit, but it was another moment that made Sarah hold on hope for. She’d also found Steve and Bucky, kissing, in the living room as she came back from work. That day broke her heart. 

“What’s going on?” she asked. No one moved. Steve and Bucky sprang apart from each other, Bruce looked like he was about to cry. 

Natasha, decided to be blunt. “They’re dating,”, she informed. 

In her head, everything made sense. They way they sat so close to each other, how their hugs always seemed more intimate than they were. Her God didn’t allow it, but Sarah would alway love her kids, no matter what her holy book said. The tension in the room could be cut by a knife, as she realized they wanted her to react first. 

“Steve, Bucky- I love you guys, okay? I just, I just don’t know how I feel about my children dating at thirteen,” 

Sarah watched as relief filled the room. Steve and Bucky both relaxed considerably, and Natasha let out a happy sigh. All was good in the Rogers household. 

In 1931, Sarah Rogers got a very strange letter. No return address, just a couple of lines saying how her kid needed a place to stay, and signed by a Ebony Stark. 

Stark? Like the Howard Stark that lost most of his money in the crash? So maybe Sarah didn’t like people who were overly rich, and didn’t use their money for good, but she wasn’t about to let a child have nowhere to go. 

So, she informed the kids and cleared out a space for another mattress. The day that Tony Stark arrived at her house, was the day all her repressed memories of coming to America surfaced. The Titanic, the sinking, Bonnie? The girl she’d sat with was not the wife of the past richest man in all America? Her real name was Ebony? 

The thing about Tony was that he had, expensive taste and was dissatisfied with the Rogers way of living. He was also livid about having to share a room with a girl. But by 1932, he got along well in their little family. 

It was also the year she got sick. 

Tuberculosis, the doctors told her. There’s no way you’ll live.   
Sarah opens her eyes, and looks at her children crowded around her small hospital bed. She lifts her hands and hugs them close to her bosom. She doesn’t want them here, doesn’t want them to contract her sickness. 

In a raspy whisper, she says to her children, “I hope I was a good parent, that I taught you valuable lessons, I hope you grow up to be kind, caring people, that you treat every human being with respect and kindness. I hope you guys fight for what you believe in. Go, now, I don’t you to get sick,”

Her kids are crying now, and Sarah's yelling at herself for bringing unneeded sadness to her children. Her kids, not all hers, that she cherishes so much. She shoos them out, and each one of them leave, crying. 

Sarah then begins to pray. 

Y'hi ratzon milfanekha Adonay eloheynu v'elohey avoteynu v'imoteynu shetvatel milkhamot u'sh'fikhut damim min ha'olam v'tamshikh shalom gadol v'nifla ba'olam v'lo yisa goy el goy kherev v'lo yilm'du od milkhamah.  
Rak yakiru v'yadu kol yoshvey tevel ha'emet la'amito asher lo banu lazeh ha'olam bishvil riv u'makahloket v'lo bishvil sin'ah v'kinah v'kintur ushpikhot damim. Rak banu la'olam k'dey otkha titbarekh lanetzakh.  
U'vkhen t'rakhem aleynu v'kayim banu mikrah shekatov v'natati shalom ba'aretz ushkhavtem v'eyn makharid v'hishbati khayah ra'ah min ha'aretz v'kherev lo taavor b'artzekhem v'yagel kamim mishpat o'tzdakah k'nakhal eytan. Ki malah ha'aretz da'ah et Adonay kamim l'yam m'khasim.

Her eyes close, and her mouth falls into a small smile.

**Author's Note:**

> oka y okay so im not jewish so i got the prayer from a website, here's the translation: May it be your will, Eternal One, our God, God of our ancestors, that wars and bloodshed be abolished from the world, and bring into the world a great and wonderful and lasting peace. And let no nation lift a sword against a nation—let them learn no more the ways of war!
> 
> Let all who dwell on earth simply acknowledge the truth of truths: that we have not come into this world for the sake of quarreling and war, nor for the sake of hatred, jealousy, anger, or bloodshed; rather, we have come into this world only to know You—may You be blessed eternally!
> 
> Therefore, have mercy on us, and fulfill among us what is written in your Scripture: “I shall give peace upon the earth, and you shall lie down with none to make you afraid. I shall abolish from the earth the predatory beast. The sword shall never come upon your land. Justice shall roll down like the water, and righteousness like a mighty stream. For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of The Omnipresent, as the waters fill the seas.”
> 
> anyways, follow me on tumblr @mariiahills!


End file.
